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Province urged to act to save grizzlies of southwestern B.C.

The Coast to Cascades Grizzly Bear Initiative is asking the province to better protect grizzlies from human-caused deaths and further loss and fragmentation of their habitat.

Photograph by: Parks Canada - Steve Michel, The Canadian Press

A new coalition of environmental groups is urging the B.C. government
to do more to protect threatened grizzly populations in southwestern
B.C.

The Coast to Cascades Grizzly Bear Initiative is asking the
province to better protect grizzlies from human-caused deaths and
further loss and fragmentation of their habitat.

Since 2006,
humans have killed three breeding aged females in the Stein-Nahatlatch
region, where there are only an estimated 24 grizzlies — and no official
hunting season — the group says. At least two were shot as threats to
people or property.

“In such small grizzly populations every bear
is critically important, particularly females,” Allen McEwan of the
Pemberton Wildlife Association said in a statement Tuesday. “Each dead
female means that all her potential offspring are also lost – the very
animals that will help these populations recover.”

The initiative
aims to save local grizzlies by promoting measures to avoid human-bear
conflict and additional habitat destruction while encouraging
environmentally responsible development.

It notes that grizzly
populations in southwestern B.C. suffer from isolation due to human
fragmentation of their habitat through mining, forestry, hydroelectric
projects, tourism, agriculture and settlement.

Among other members
of the initiative include the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society,
Sierra Club BC, Conservation Northwest, BC Nature, and Association of
Whistler Area Residents for the Environment.

The initiative is
urging the government to complete and implement grizzly bear management
and recovery plans for the most imminently threatened grizzly bear
populations before they decline any further or disappear altogether.

Southwestern
B.C. is home to only an estimated 91 grizzlies, or about half a
percentage of the provincial total: in addition to the Stein-Nahatlatch,
there are an estimated 59 in the Squamish-Lillooet area, six in the
North Cascades, and two in Garibaldi-Pitt.

Add the South Chilcotin
Ranges (203) and Toba Inlet-Bute Inlet (116), and the total is 410,
less than three per cent of the B.C. total.

A 2012 report by the provincial government estimated there are 15,075 grizzly bears in B.C.